Front page of New York Times

"QUENTIN TARANTINO never had to go through this. When The Age of Stupid, a climate change movie, "opens" across the United States in September, it will play on some 400 screens in a one-night event, with a video performance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, all paid for by the film-makers themselves and their backers. In Britain, meanwhile, the film has been showing via an internet service that lets anyone pay to license a copy, set up a screening and keep the profit.

The glory days of independent film, when hot young directors like Steven Soderbergh and Tarantino had studio executives tangled in fierce bidding wars at Sundance and other celebrity-studded festivals, are now barely a speck in the rear-view mirror. And something new has taken their place."